Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may happily strike out his teeth.

All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness...

False love, desire, and beauty frail, adieu! Dead is the root whence all these fancies grew.

He that doth not as other men do, but endeavoureth that which ought to be done, shall thereby rather incur peril than preservation; for whoso laboureth to be sincerely perfect and good shall necessarily perish,...

PASSIONS are likened best to floods and streams:The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;

A professional man of letters, especially if he is much at war with unscrupulous enenemies, is naturally jealous of his privacy… so it was, I think, with Dryden.

Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.